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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24011854">sequel</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pokeshipping_Flash/pseuds/Pokeshipping_Flash'>Pokeshipping_Flash</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, First Kiss, Flash Fic, One Shot, Romantic Friendship, Unresolved Romantic Tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 23:22:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24011854</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pokeshipping_Flash/pseuds/Pokeshipping_Flash</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Continued from "outcome". There's one major difference between Misty kissing him and all the girls before. Pokeshipping.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kasumi | Misty/Satoshi | Ash Ketchum</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sequel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>As a reminder, fic requests are always accepted but only through the Tumblr blog, which can be linked to from this account's profile. Please take a look at the blog's FAQ regarding requests and feel free to go through the master fic list too.</p>
<p>Comments are appreciated. Feel free to ask questions about this account (that aren't provided on the Ao3 profile already).</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She shouldn’t have bothered. She should have known better.</p>
<p>“What’s it matter to you, Mist?” you ask her, though a part of you doesn’t dare to know, doesn’t want the truth. The truth means change and you’ve been doing just fine with everything staying the same so indefinitely.</p>
<p>But, then again, it was you who opened the door to begin with, wasn’t it? What reaction had you been expecting from her after such a statement? Or rather… what reaction had you been maybe, possibly hoping for…?</p>
<p>She appears to purse her lips, bite her tongue, stare you dead in the eye as she takes you head on. The thought crosses your mind - <em>who will win this latest round?</em> - before she buckles and turns back to her drink, gaze darting between all of the potential spectators of your intimate conversation, wary of eavesdroppers.</p>
<p>“S’nothin’, Mr. Pokemon Master,” she mumbles somewhat dejectedly, swigs down the last of her tea, gets up and walks in the direction of Dawn and the Pokemon, intent on distraction.</p>
<p>And you think maybe you’ve hit a nerve.</p>
<p>Throughout the evening, you can’t help following her with your eyes, waiting for the snap, the break, the retribution. Misty barely looks at you, busies herself with everyone else who happens to be around but not being so obvious so as to make them see the invisible wall that’s been constructed between you both since dinner.</p>
<p>She still asks questions, still engages, but keeps things so shallow you shudder from a brisk chill whenever she says your name.</p>
<p>The draft continues on into early the next morning, as you toss restlessly under the covers in your bed, huffing at the shadows dancing on the walls, careful not to nudge a soundly snoozing Pikachu from where he rests just to the right of your head.</p>
<p>For the hundredth time since that conversation, you can’t help asking yourself why you bothered to bring it up. Why did it matter so much that you had to say something aloud? Why did it have to be only Misty who was around to hear it?</p>
<p>Were you really simply curious? No, probably not. You never had been before anyway.</p>
<p>Were you <em>bragging</em>? But what’s it matter how many times someone receives a kiss? You’d never cared to keep count in the past so…</p>
<p>You don’t know what else to think until your conscious thought is consumed by an old familiar tick-tock from the clock across the room.</p>
<p>The time tells you that limbo has come; the period when it’s too late for real sleep but too early for real activity. Still, you figure it’s best to get up and find something to take space and brain capacity away from your frustration confusion.</p>
<p>Cautiously easing out of bed and slinking towards the door, you watch to make sure you haven’t accidentally woken Pikachu before twisting the knob, pulling, and exiting to the upstairs landing, turning to face ahead of you almost too late to keep from crashing into a certain redheaded friend.</p>
<p>“M - Misty!” you squeak in panic.</p>
<p>“Oh. Ash.” She doesn’t sound nearly as upset over your run-in. In fact, she seems somewhat dazed, maybe a little put-off, by the near collision.</p>
<p>“Uh,” you stammer, stealthily easing the door behind you the rest of the way closed and standing against it, “wh - what’re ya doin’ up?”</p>
<p>“I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been… I was thinking of something. I thought I’d come s - talk to you.”</p>
<p>“You came for me? Why?” Your brow furrows in wonder edging on expectation.</p>
<p>“I just…”</p>
<p>She tapers off, sighing, and you finally notice her wringing her hands around the hem of her shirt, nibbling the bottom of her lip, nostrils of her nose flaring just enough to seem troubled before your gaze crosses to her cheeks. You hone in on the oddly pretty flush of color clashing with her splash of freckles.</p>
<p>“Ash.”</p>
<p>She says your name in the same tone as the first time. It’s a whisper. A breath. A call to arms. A request.</p>
<p><em>But what does she want?</em> a voice asks in stiff alarm at the back of your mind.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” you croak, a deep dry heave of oxygen chilling the back of your throat, “Misty?”</p>
<p>Somehow in the midst of you being worked up and enthralled in certain details, one of her hands has coaxingly grazed against your bare arm, a storm of elements coursing through the point of direct contact. Her other hand gains traction and runs symmetrically, lightly grasping a hold of you from yourother side.</p>
<p>The horizon peaks from the window behind her, bracing her silhouette with the faintest light and steeling your lungs in response.</p>
<p>Slowly, agonizingly, her fingers and palms lift their way, caressing up past your elbows, yoursuddenly very tense biceps, your strained shoulders and neck.</p>
<p>“What’s… what’re… ya doin’?” you inquire rather breathlessly as her fingertips and the pad of one of her thumbs stroke against each of your cheeks.</p>
<p>It’s altogether much <em>too much</em> at one time as the two of you stand inches apart in the upstairs hallway of your home embraced by daybreak, as her hands are on you, intricately tracing the contour of your jawline, your carotid pulse bracing under her nerve-wracking hold, back up to your dimples and the corners of your mouth.</p>
<p>And then she stops, looks you in the eye. A small piece of you is glad for the brakes screeching to a halt but another, urgent fraction of yourself is begging for a continuance.</p>
<p>“Ash,” she calls you for a third time since running into you what seems an eternity ago outside of your bedroom, “Sere - I mean… You’ve been… You really <em>have </em>been kissed a lot, huh?”</p>
<p><em>What’s it matter to you? </em>you’d asked her the day before, though you’re thinking you should try a different approach.</p>
<p>“Y - you think so too?”</p>
<p>Your thoughts return to what you’d been considering while wrenching around in bed less than an hour ago.</p>
<p>Had you been curious about the frequency…? Had you been bragging about the many opportunities? But no, you think now there may have been a subconscious purpose in bringing the topic up when only Misty was around to hear.</p>
<p>“Can I…?” she asks openly, and you’re left to finish putting her words together for her internally as she leans in a little more.</p>
<p>
  <em>Maybe it matters much more than we’re willing to admit.</em>
</p>
<p>“… Yeah.”</p>
<p>You stand stock still as she presses her lips to yours, unsure if doing anything at all would be wrong and unwilling to mar the experience with your own lack thereof. Staring wide-eyed at the magnified close-up of her face, you watch her eyelids fluttering lightly against the freckly upper curve of her cheeks. Your fingers snake unbidden around her wrists, hands sliding up her forearms even if you’re still too concerned with doing something wrong to maneuver your lips.</p>
<p>And you think to yourself as you both take a few paces back after that it’s weird that you’ve been kissed so many times since you started training Pokemon… but, in the clarity that follows the aftermath, it’s also interesting (and rather telling) that <em>Misty’s </em>the only one you’ve invited to kiss <strike>with</strike> you.</p>
<p>And perhaps, rather than curiosity or ego, this was the reason behind you bringing up the subject all along.</p>
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